Ice Brothers

by Sloan Wilson

  CHAPTER 33

  Angmagssalik Fjord was surprisingly free of ice. Like the other fjords Paul had seen, it resembled a river at the bottom of a great rocky canyon but it was about five miles wide. As the Arluk steamed into it, a dozen kayaks put out from shore to greet her, their ivory-tipped double-bladed paddles flashing in the sun. They relieved any last doubt in Paul’s mind that he had found the right place. According to the pilotbook, the only Eskimos within hundreds of miles lived at Angmagssalik.

  The first kayak to reach the ship was paddled by a diminutive Greenlander in a sealskin parka. The man had the nearly circular copper-colored face of a full-blooded Eskimo and long black hair streaked with gray, despite the fact that his laughing eyes looked young. As Paul stopped the engines, the Eskimo paddled his kayak on a parallel course, his narrow but powerful shoulders and short arms wielding the double-bladed paddle with astonishing skill and force. The kayak leapt through the water. As the ship slowed, it darted alongside the well deck. To Paul’s surprise, its occupant tossed his paddle to the deck of the ship and leapt aboard. He took the end of a bow painter with him and speedily hauled his kayak over the rail. It all happened in one quick blur of motion, as though Eskimo and kayak had jumped simultaneously from the water to the deck.

  “Me Peomeenie,” the man said. “Me pilot.”

  “Come on up to the bridge,” Paul called.

  Peomeenie marched to the bridge with great assurance. The top of his head came only to Paul’s shoulder as he pointed up the fjord. “You go there,” he said with authority.

  The chart was on too small a scale to give details and Paul was glad to have Peomeenie aboard when they skirted a group of rocky islands and approached a cove. Through his binoculars Paul could see a half-dozen of the little red houses the Danes built and more sod huts. A miniature church with a tall white steeple and the incongruous sight of a white yacht, a small ketch on the ways on a rocky beach, made the settlement look a little like a New England village.

  Mr. Williams, the new ensign, who had made such an art of sort of hiding himself aboard the ship that Paul had almost forgotten about him, suddenly appeared on the bridge. He had put on a new uniform. Taking a pair of binoculars from a box, he attempted to stare at the town through them for several seconds before realizing that rubber caps still protected the lenses. When he got these off, he said, “It doesn’t look like much of a town, does it, captain?”

  “What did you expect, Broadway and Forty-second Street?”

  Paul was ashamed of treating the new ensign almost as badly as Mowrey had treated him, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t like Mr. Williams. That was unreasonable, of course, but there was something about the young man’s scrawny neck and acne-marred face that infuriated Paul and almost everyone else aboard the ship, except Seth, who was fatherly toward the newcomer, and Nathan, who kept trying to teach him things, even though Mr. Williams obviously was incapable of learning even how to tie his own shoes. One of his laces always dragged. The fact that he never appeared with both shoelaces tied had begun to fascinate Paul.

  “Damn it, tie your shoelace!” Paul said now. “If you trip and fall overboard, this water will turn you to ice inside of about thirty seconds.”

  “Aye, aye sir,” Mr. Williams said. “Do you want me to send a message of arrival to GreenPat?”

  “Get Mr. Green to check it before it goes out.”

  Peomeenie pointed to a small cove behind a point. “Anchor there.”

  “Boats, pipe the men to anchor stations,” Paul called to the chief petty officer, who was laying out mooring lines, and the red-haired boatswain’s mate gave him a murderous glance that clearly said, “Why didn’t you tell me that before I got out these lines? Are you letting a damn Eskimo run the ship?”

  After the trawler let go her anchor, Paul stopped the engine. In the moment of silence that followed they all heard the distant drone of a plane.

  “It’s probably one of ours, but we better man the guns,” Paul said. “They say the Krauts run patrols here.”

  Before the men had the guns loaded, the plane broke through the cloud cover and headed toward them. Clearly it was American navy, PBY. Paul’s relief was swept away by the thought that it might have been sent to return Mowrey to his ship. If Mowrey recovered, as he had promised, this would be the logical place for him to be flown in the fjord made a good place for a PBY to land. Paul could almost see the old pilot arriving aboard, his uniform freshly starched, his red face blazing. The men, no doubt, would cheer.

  Circling low over the trawler, the PBY dipped its wings, and to Paul’s immeasurable relief headed north, following the edge of the ice pack.

  A heavy black launch with a pilothouse on the stern put out from a small wharf and headed toward the Arluk. An Eskimo crew brought her smartly alongside the well deck and a stout white-haired man in a heavy blue greatcoat climbed aboard with such difficulty that Boats rushed to help him. Although this visitor had to be hauled over the rail almost like a sack of potatoes, he quickly recovered his dignity. Standing up as straight as his round body permitted, he said, “I wish to see your captain.” Although his words were correct, his heavy Danish accent made them difficult to understand, and he had to repeat himself three times, each time louder and more authoritatively before Boats led him to the bridge.

  The Dane sported a thin white mustache which looked incongruous on his fat florid face. His first words to Paul were, “I’m Swanson. I am the authority here. We do not allow enlisted men ashore, the common sailors. It is the law. Too much trouble there’s been.”

  “I see,” Paul replied icily.

  “We have to protect the native population.”

  Paul understood that, and in his heart even sided with the Eskimos, but he also felt for his men, most of whom were already changing into dress blues. “Perhaps you can assign us a field away from the native population for recreation,” he said.

  “No. The common sailors must stay aboard.”

  “We have no common sailors here. They are all uncommon.”

  “What you say?”

  “Let it pass.”

  “What you here for? You have supplies for us?”

  “No supplies for you.”

  “What you here for?”

  The Dane’s tone was definitely hostile, just what one might expect if the village had Nazi sympathizers, Paul thought, and said, “We have been picking up enemy radio signals coming from this vicinity. We want to see if you know anything about them.”

  “Don’t understand.”

  “How many Danes live here?”

  “Just me and three families. Nine people.”

  “I want to come ashore and talk to them.”

  “All right, but no common sailors.”

  “I’ll bring my executive officer, he’s very uncommon.”

  Swanson climbed back aboard his boat with Boats’s help, and with gruff thanks headed for shore without offering Paul a ride. Soon Paul and Nathan followed in the whaleboat. It seemed curious that no Eskimos rushed to meet them at the wharf and only sled dogs were visible on the beach. These dogs rushed to the end of the wharf as they approached and stood there barking and snarling. Even when Paul roared at them, they did not back away far.

  “I’m damned if I’ll let dogs scare me,” Paul said, picking up a big crescent wrench and making throwing motions. The dogs retreated toward the middle of the wharf, but they still made the job of climbing up there appear frightening. Paul roared louder than ever. Above the snarling and the yapping he suddenly heard a woman’s voice call, “Don’t be afraid.” Looking toward the beach, he saw a sight that was astonishing for its normality in that place. A woman wearing a tan trench coat and a broad-brimmed green hat such as one might expect to see in New York or Boston was coming toward the wharf. “Don’t be afraid,” she called again. “They’ll run when you come close.”

  The dogs trotted up to her and began nuzzling her like house-pets. Paul and Nathan scrambled up to the wharf.

>   “I just wasn’t taking any chances,” Paul began.

  “That was wise. Some of these dogs are dangerous.” She spoke with a British and a slight Danish accent. While petting the dogs, she added, “Can I help you with whatever you want here?”

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?” Paul said above the whining of the dogs.

  “I can offer you tea. I hope that Mr. Swanson didn’t make you think that we all are too inhospitable. He is very protective about the Eskimos.”

  She was a tall, thin woman maybe about thirty years old, Paul saw as he walked closer. Her face was too narrow and angular to be really beautiful, but it was full of vitality, and her smile struck Paul as extremely sexy, a fact which he should not find surprising, he reminded himself, since he had been known to find the shape of icebergs stimulating.

  “I understand about the Eskimos,” Paul said.

  “It seems that they’ve had a good deal of trouble on the west coast,” the woman said with a smile, and Paul was suddenly sure that every Danish settlement in Greenland had heard of the Arluk’s debacle with the stolen booze.

  “Our men are under a lot of pressure and sometimes they get a little out of hand,” he said.

  “I’m sure they’re all on their good behavior now,” Nathan added. “All we want is a place for them to drink beer and play baseball. We don’t want them to mix with the Eskimos, either.”

  “Something can be arranged, I’m sure,” the woman said. “Mr. Swanson is old and not very well. The reports have frightened him. He has ordered everyone to stay in the houses. He will be quite angry with me, I fear, but I often have to remind him that Greenland at least is a free territory.”

  With the dogs following peaceably, she led the way over a path of frozen mud to a tiny house at the end of a row of five. The middle house, both Paul and Nathan noted, had a narrow radio tower projecting from the roof, but most of the Danish settlements had radio of some kind. The dogs trotted away as she reached the front door. In a cramped vestibule like those Paul had seen on the west coast, she took off her trench coat, revealing a black and white sweater with a pattern of reindeer and a dark green skirt. When she took off her hat, Paul saw that she had dark blonde hair that was cut very short, a style that would have looked masculine if her features had been less delicate. The sweater did not do much for her—she was a lot thinner than the women about whom Paul had been dreaming.

  After Paul and Nathan had hung their parkas on pegs beside her trench coat, she led the way to a small livingroom dominated by a coal stove on which a tea kettle steamed. Swanson was sitting in an armchair, his big face afraid, angry, or both. Another old man got up from a straight chair to greet them and a pleasantly plump old woman came from the kitchen with a plate of pastries. They all wore conventional European clothes. The woman in the reindeer sweater introduced them. They had long Danish names which Paul found it impossible to remember. “By the way,” she concluded, “I’m Brit, Brit Holstrom.” Turning to Nathan she smiled and said, “Now, captain, what’s your name?”

  It was natural, Paul told himself, for her to assume that Nathan was the captain of the ship. Although Nathan was only about five years older than Paul, his craggy face made him appear far more mature. He was two inches taller than Paul and had much more dignity, a quality which Paul’s light blond hair and boyish face made difficult to manage.

  “Paul Schuman here is the skipper,” Nathan said with his wry grin. “I’m Nathan Green, at your service.”

  He brought that little phrase off with a fine touch, Paul noticed with a twinge of envy, and Brit gave him an especially warm smile of appreciation. They all sat on hard chairs in a semicircle around the stove while the plump woman served tea.

  “I’m sorry, but we have no lemon and no milk,” Swanson said heavily. “Very little sugar too. I had hoped you were bringing supplies.”

  “I’m afraid my orders are just to check radio signals,” Paul said.

  “Perhaps you can explain it to me,” Brit said. “I used to have a job as an interpreter.”

  There was no polite way to explain that he was investigating the possibility that some Danes might be radioing weather reports for the Germans. He did the best he could, concluding with “We just thought that someone who was working for the Germans might have come here under false pretenses. Have there been any late arrivals from Europe?”

  “Just me and my father,” Brit said. “We got here about a year ago. Everyone else has been here for ages. I suppose you have every right to suspect me and dad. Don’t be embarrassed. I would if I were in your shoes.”

  “I am embarrassed,” Paul said. “But I have to write a routine report. Have I met your father?”

  “No, but you can later if necessary. He’s not well. He’s in bed.”

  “May I ask how you came here?”

  “We got out of Denmark aboard that little ketch on the ways. The Nazis strafed us. My husband and son were killed. You can be sure that we have no sympathy with the Germans.”

  Brit’s hands fluttered in the air while she talked and died in her lap. The room was very quiet.

  “I understand,” Nathan said, his deep voice making it clear that he did indeed understand.

  Brit glanced at his gaunt face. “Yes,” she said, and glanced into her teacup.

  “Let me emphasize that I never really suspected you,” Paul said, his words sounding absurdly theatrical to his own ears.

  “Thank you,” Brit said. Getting up, she walked across the room and offered Nathan a plate of cookies. Holding it in her left hand, she touched his shoulder with her right fingers, like a curious sort of benediction, and said, “I guess that the war hasn’t been so easy for a lot of us.”

  No one else in the room talked. There was an instant of silence before Brit said to Nathan, “For your records, I should prove what I say. I can show you where the Germans strafed my boat—not much of it has been repaired. I have the logbook and charts aboard. Would you like to see them?”

  She touched his arm. To her surprise, Nathan almost flinched. His arm went rigid and his smile was a little forced when he said, “Thank you very much but I think you better ask the skipper about that. I’m just here to look at your radio equipment. Could you ask someone to show me that?”

  For a moment the girl’s sensitive face looked hurt, but she quickly smiled. “Of course,” she said.

  “I would like to see anything you have that would help me make out my report,” Paul said quickly, moving to the girl’s side. “It’s very kind of you to offer.”

  Swanson volunteered to show Nathan the radio equipment. A little stiffly Nathan bid the group good-by, shook hands with Brit, and followed his guide out of the house.

  The equipment that Swanson showed Nathan in the cottage with the radio mast did not have the range or frequencies the Germans would have needed. Nathan inspected it briefly and had the whaleboat return him to the ship. In ways he did not fully understand, Brit had left him oddly shaken. She did not really resemble his wife, who had been taller and had had dark hair to her shoulders, but she had somehow evoked Rebecca with startling clarity. Her hands, her hands … Rebecca too had such delicate little hands, with which she often gestured as she talked, and Rebecca too had often been able to send almost a shock of electricity through his arm merely by touching it. And there had been so much in Brit’s face—grief, understanding, that glance of sudden rapport which she had directed at him. In Rebecca’s dark eyes there had been just such immediate understanding. Eerie …

  Since the disappearance of his wife, Nathan had been seriously tempted by no woman, and he was shocked to discover how much he wanted Brit. To him, taking another woman would mean the final acceptance of his wife’s death, and he fought the temptation. Of course he shouldn’t feel guilty for responding to Brit’s touch with such absurd intensity, he thought. What sailor in the Arctic wouldn’t tremble a little at a woman’s touch?

  CHAPTER 34

  Paul had noted the immediate rapport between Na
than and the girl, and had been ridiculously jealous because the girl obviously was more drawn to Nathan than to him. Although Nathan had not told him anything about his personal tragedy, Paul had sensed that there was something deeply wrong in his personal life, and when Nathan almost froze at the girl’s touch he assumed that there must be a reason. He sympathized with Nathan, but at the moment he was much more concerned with Brit, who had suffered a kind of rejection, even if it all had happened so fast, and who was now turning to him with something of the same look she had at first directed toward Nathan.

  “I really don’t want to bother you,” Paul said, “but I’d like to see your boat. The Coast Guard tries to keep a record of all vessels coming to Greenland, especially from Europe.”

  “That sounds very sensible,” she said, and traced a sensible little circle in the air with her forefinger. Finishing her tea, she led the way to the vestibule, where he helped her to put on her trench coat, which looked much too thin for this climate.

  “I haven’t helped a woman on with a coat in a long time.”

  This time her smile was warm.

  “You do it very well,” she said. “You don’t fumble. I can’t stand men who fumble.”

  She led the way toward the ketch on the ways near the beach.

  In the distance the little white yacht had looked ready for a Long Island regatta, but as he drew near Paul saw that she was seaworn and her hull amidships had been clumsily patched with rough-hewn planks. Without speaking, Brit led the way up a ladder to the cockpit. Stepping over splintered combing, she slid open a hatch. Following her, Paul found himself in a tiny cabin, the teak trim of which reminded him of the old Valkyrie. There was the same moldy smell, a chill of dampness like a tomb. A tiny stove not unlike the one aboard his father’s ancient yawl stood in the galley, but it burned oil. When Brit lit it, it began to roar, and suddenly the cabin was a snug place.

  Moving with quick efficiency, Brit lifted the top of a desk and took out a sea-stained notebook.

  “This is the log,” she said. “It’s in Danish, but you could turn it in to your authorities if they want to check on us. The whole story is here.” Handing it to him, she shrugged. “Of course, if I were working for the Germans, I probably would come armed with documents like this. There’s nothing I can prove, is there?”